Due to this Coronavirus crisis, schools are closed, and we don’t have to get up early in the morning. It feels like we are having a long vacation. As a farmer under self-quarantine, our daily work hasn’t changed, seems our life keeps going on as usual. But we have to keep distance from our friends, cut down the times of visiting stores, and be very careful all the time in public. There is a change in our life, we lost the freedom of living carefree. We are hoping we’ll regain that carefree life in the near future. Life continues, let me share some things that have happened in our life.

Beginning of 2018, our friends were working inside our new house. John came along and helped on the project. He and his wife Susan just moved to Kona from Arizona, looking for a place to buy. He is a contractor and they are David and Joni’s friends. One day he came to our building site with David. We found out that he can do anything with carpentry. He joined Jerry and David and installed the dry walls. After that, he did most of the finishing jobs. He stained the wood ceiling, painted the rooms, installed the doors, built the closets and shelves, tiled the bathroom, helped me getting the right size of vanity and installed it, and helped me measure for the kitchen cabinets. He didn’t ask to get payed with his usual rate. He accepted the money and coffee we gave him. He said he was just happy to help a friend. Before he could install the flooring, he and Susan moved back to mainland. Susan got sick and went to emergency room. In the hospital she realized that she wanted to live close to their kids and grand kids.

In the whole process of building project, Terry tried to stay out of decision making. He said that I will live in this house longer than him and that it’s going to be my house, so I should make all decisions and build it as I wish. He just was happy to help build it.

Starting with the house plan, I drew the floor plan and told Terry my ideas. He told me to draw the exact size of the plan on the coffee drying deck with chalk and walk in the different rooms to get a feeling about the space. I did as he recommended and changed many times. We found a draftsman to draw the plan. Chad is a very nice and patient local man, he talked to me a few times, and changed some places a couple of times.

While picking a color for the house, Terry didn’t care as long as I like it. I narrowed it down to two colors. We bought one small can of each color, painted on two boards and leaned them against the wall. I looked at the boards from different angles and distances at the different times of the day. I still couldn’t make up my mind. Terry said I didn’t need to be so stressed about it. If I don’t like the color, we can repaint it later. One day, at the lunch break, we were talking about it with Jerry. Jerry suggested tossing a coin to pick the color. Right there a quarter decided the house color, later I used another color in the living room.

We had a man paint the exterior walls, but a couple months later, the color started to fade. I bought the highest grade of paint and repainted the whole house in two weeks. I used an extension poll for the high places and avoided climbing ladder. I painted the overhangs from the windows. John use to be a professional painter, so he gave me a few tips and complemented me with the job. Wow, it was my first time painting a house, I actually did it. After that, I did more painting jobs around the house.

When I came to choose the color for our bedroom, I wanted a warm color, not a cool color. I really wanted to hear Terry’s opinion, but he didn’t care. I was not happy cause he didn’t even want to think about it. So I said, ” So even I painted the room pink, you still don’t mind?” He said: “Pink is not my favorite color, but if you sleep in the pink room, I’ll sleep in it too. I’ll get used to it.” This non serious conversation decided the tone of the color, I got several shades of pink sample cards, looked at them everyday and couldn’t make up my mind.

On February 18th 2018, Sunday, Ann and Brad went back to Canada after one month vacation in Hawaii, they came to visit us in the morning before they left. I told Ann about my problem, she helped me. She held the sample cards in different spots of the room. I looked at them from different angles and picked out the color I preferred in 15 minutes. Talking to Ann helped a lot, lady friends are so important in our life. We got to have a few good lady friends around us. On that day, Terry went to Lowe’s and bought the paint.

John painted the room. The color in the can seems too pink. After he finished the job, I checked it out the next day. Wow, the room felt warm and so so soft like light peach blossom, so cozy. I couldn’t wait to sleep in the room. Every time I walked into the room, it made me happy and smiling right away. Jerry saw the room and complemented on how the color is so soft. Now we have slept in the room over a year and my eyes got used to the color. It doesn’t give me such a strong feeling anymore. In a sunny day it’s a white room to my eyes, on a cloudy day it shows a little pinkish. I’m still very happy with it.

I shopped four stores and picked out the tiles for bathroom. John did a very good job putting in the tiles. Terry said that he enjoys our shower room very much, it reminds me John a lot too when I use it.

Terry wanted hard wood flooring. He talked to Kim who has a flooring business and lives not very far from us. He had some 8″ and 10″ wide European oak flooring left over from some project. He wanted to get rid of it, so he offered us the whole sale price and lending his tools to install. There were enough materials to cover the living room and west side porch, so we bought it. Our friend Matt helped to install and finish the job. Right after that, our kitchen cabinets arrived which Matt installed too.

I bought kitchen cabinets from Lowe’s. Bob is the cabinet designer who worked with me. He was another very good man, I told him my preferred budget, and showed him the pictures of my vision that I wanted. We made some changes after he explained to me the reasons. My budget was low. He drew the finishing designs, offered two quotes from two brand companies which I picked. They were expensive, even the cheaper one cost much more than my budget. Matt said that’s about the right price range for a kitchen cabinet. Terry said we are only going to build a house once, let’s do it right. Now I’m the one using the kitchen most, I enjoy cooking every day.

I learned a lot through the whole process, and had a very good experience working with these awesome men. They really listened to me, did the job as I wanted, explained to me when my plan had to change. We are so lucky to have these friends.

We finished building around October. We waited a while for the water supply company to hook up water to our new home. We moved into it just before Christmas in 2018. It took us a week to move things little by little. Our old house is a funky one, but we were used to it and felt very comfortable there. It took me two weeks to get used to sleep in the new room and new bed. Slowly our Qi settled into the new space and we felt more and more comfortable in the new home.

For quite a while, I had light sleep and many strange dreams. People and places I don’t know at all, I didn’t remember most of dreams when I woke up. I told Terry that maybe there were still some old unsettled energy on the land. Terry said he didn’t think so. We cleaned and changed the land, and wiped out any old signs and bad energy from it. Nobody can picture the old image of it. Our hard work claimed this place. I also thought I lost the ability to have meaningful dreams. Last August I had a very special dream, I felt relieved and relaxed again.

There were still so much work around the house after we moved into it, it kept us very busy. I would like to have a house warming party, but Terry was not up to it. He totally objected a big party.

We have many friends and have been to many of their parties. It’s our turn to host a party. We had lived here almost a year, some of our friends hadn’t been here. When we were getting close to the end of coffee season last year, Terry seems more relaxed about the party idea. I told him that I would prepare the food. All he needed to do was talk to our friends, and enjoy their visits. I selected our friends into four groups, picked the date and called them. On November and December, we hosted four parties. They were small parties that worked out very well. They were relaxing and fun to everyone.